“Two weeks ago I posted this picture on my wall asking if anyone had seen nails like this,” she wrote on an updated Facebook post. “A few Google posts later and I was urged to go to the doctor. A tad extreme I thought.”

She continued she was rushed for blood tests and a chest X-ray, and two days later, she was called in for a CT scan, PET scan and more blood tests.

“The day later a breathing test on my lungs and a scan on my heart, the day later an MRI scan then a lung biopsy.”

She explained after two weeks, the results showed she had cancer in both of her lungs. “When your nails curve it’s often linked to heart and lung disease and its official term is ‘clubbing,’ I had no idea.”

What is nail clubbing?

“I’d been working in a factory so my nails were really short. I got an office job about six weeks ago and they decided to grow,” she told the paper. “I’ve always had weak nails and I’ve never got them to this length because they were never strong and I was working in a factory. But now I think I could knock a nail in with them.”

“Nail clubbing is sometimes the result of low oxygen in the blood and could be a sign of various types of lung disease. Nail clubbing is also associated with inflammatory bowel disease, cardiovascular disease, liver disease and AIDS,” the site notes.

“It is a pretty characteristic finding and a good diagnostic clue to look at the lungs,” Rich told the site. “It probably has something to do with oxygenation of the tips of the digits, although there’s really no literature that explains it with 100 per cent certainty.”